History Of Klagenfurt
Foundation
The Legend of the Lindwurm
Legend goes that a troop of valiant warriors slew a horrible winged “lindwurm” from the moors near the lake, which was hunting the nearby duchy. With a serpent-like body, two clawed legs, and two wings, a lindwurm is a legendary creature resembling a dragon. Said to consume livestock, lambs, and even humans, the lindwurm caused horror and hopelessness among the peasants.
According to the tradition, a tower was erected on the edge of the moor to monitor for the dragon, and the dragon was baited with a bull rigged with a chain and hook that grabbed the jaw. The creature’s scales were too tough to cut, and the knights assaulted the lindwurm with their swords and spears. At last one of the knights was able to slay the lindwurm by stabbing it in the heart, therefore ending its reign of terror.
A community developed on the battlefield, first little then progressively expanding into a town; the watchtower was replaced by a castle. Named Klagenfurt, meaning “ford of lamentation,” the town reflected the wailing of the lindwurm victims. The lindwurm also came to represent the city, and a huge 9-ton Renaissance monument honoring the achievement stands in the city center. Considered as one of the landmarks of Klagenfurt, the monument built in 1590 shows the lindwurm and the knight who killed it.
The Historical Facts
Although the lindwurm myth is an interesting and well-known narrative, it is not totally grounded in historical reality. First mentioned in writing, Klagenfurt was called “Chlagenvurth” in a Carinthian document penned by Duke Herman II in 1192. The name might have come from the Slavic term “glagoljica,” which means “place of the glagolitic monks,” missionaries who traveled among the Slavic people distributing Christianity using the glagolitic script.
Originally situated next to the river Glan, the settlement of Klagenfurt was relocated to its current position close to the lake in 1246 following a catastrophic fire that mostly devastated the town. King Rudolf I of Habsburg awarded the new town city powers in 1279; in 1518 it became the seat of the Carinthian dukes. As a trading and cultural hub, the city thrived; architectural Renaissance and Baroque influences shaped it.
Still, the lindwurm monument is somewhat historically important. The municipal council ordered constructed in 1580 following the discovery of an ice age rhinoceros petrified skull in a nearby quarry. Thought to be a dragon, the skull led to the design of the monument meant to honor the city and its past. German artisan Hans Waldburger cast the monument in bronze while Italian sculptor Ulrich Vogelsang designed it. Finished in 1590, the monument was positioned in Lindwurmplatz ( Lindwurm plaza), the major plaza renaming itself.
Apart from representing Klagenfurt, the lindwurm monument reminds us of the rich and varied history of the city that combines myth and reality, legacy and modernism, culture and nature. Overcoming many obstacles, Klagenfurt is now a dynamic modern city that yet honors its natural and historical legacy.
Medieval history
Along with the Peasants’ Wars, Klagenfurt suffered from fires, earthquakes, locust invasions, and Ottoman raids in the subsequent centuries. In 1514, a fire nearly completely destroyed the city. Emperor Maximilian I handed Klagenfurt to the Estates, the nobility of the Duchy, in 1518. Despite the loud complaints of the people, they were unable to rebuild it. This occurrence had never taken place before. Conversely, the new proprietors brought political and cultural control to Klagenfurt, along with an economic boom. Noble families had townhouses built in the duchy’s new capital. The city was enlarged according to a geometrical checkerboard layout inspired by Renaissance ideas from the Italian architect Domenico dell’Allio. Additionally, a new city center square, the Neuer Platz, was constructed. The new fortifications included a canal connecting the city to the lake, serving as a supply route for timber to rebuild the city and feed the new moats.
Technical era
But in 1809, French troops (under Napoleon) dismantled the city walls, leaving only one eastern gate (which was knocked down to make way for traffic some decades later) and the small portion in the west that currently remains of the once majestic fortifications. The construction of the Vienna-Trieste railway, which provided the city with an outstanding central station (destroyed during World War II), firmly established Klagenfurt as the center of the region and enhanced the economy.
During the nineteenth century, Klagenfurt developed into a major hub of Carinthian Slovene culture. Many well-known Slovene public figures lived, studied, or worked in Klagenfurt, including politician Andrej Einspieler, activist Matija Majar (beatified in 1999), Anton Martin Slomek (who eventually became the first bishop of Maribor), and philologists Jurij Japelj and Anton Janei. The national poet of Slovenia, France Prešeren, also briefly worked there during his career. The Hermagoras Society publishing company was founded in Klagenfurt on July 27, 1851, initiated by Bishop Slomek, teacher Anton Janei, and vicar Andrej Einspieler. Although the company was transferred to Prevalje in 1919 and then to Celje in 1927, it was eventually rebuilt in Klagenfurt in 1947. One of the city’s published Slovene language newspapers was Slovenski glasnik. However, by the late nineteenth century, Slovene political and cultural influence in Klagenfurt had significantly declined, and by the end of World War I, the city had developed an essentially Austrian German character.
Nevertheless, in 1919, the Army of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes seized the city and claimed it for the newly founded South Slav monarchy. Although they left the town center in 1920, Yugoslav occupying soldiers remained in the southern suburbs, such as Viktring and Ebenthal. Following the Carinthian Plebiscite in October 1920, when most voters in the Carinthian mixed-language Zone A decided to remain part of Austria, they finally withdrew.
World War II
Though the city was attacked 41 times during World War II, Klagenfurt’s population grew by more than 50% following the integration of the town of St. Ruprecht and the municipalities of St. Peter, Annabichl, and St. Martin in 1938. The bombings destroyed 443 buildings, killed 612 persons, and injured another 1,132. 110,000 cubic meters (3,484,613 cubic feet) of trash had to be cleared before the citizens could start rebuilding their city.
Several meetings among representatives of democratic pre-1934 organizations—which were subsequently enlarged to high-ranking officials of the Wehrmacht and administration officials—occurred starting from the beginning of 1945, when the end of the war seemed certain. Delegates of the partisans in the hills south of Klagenfurt agreed not to try to seize the city by force, but supported the formal proclamation that southern Carinthia was to be a Yugoslav territory in view of the strong SS-forces in Klagenfurt.
General Löhr of Army Group E (Heeresgruppe E) decided to declare Klagenfurt a “open city,” “in case Anglo-American forces should attack the city,” a proclamation broadcast numerous times and published two days later in the Kärntner Nachrichten.
Among the other choices taken was a proclamation to the “People of Carinthia,” on May 7, 1945, when a panel gathered in the former Landhaus building of the Gau authorities planned a Provisional State government. This proclamation featured requests to the people to decorate their homes in Austrian or Carinthian colors, the resignation of the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter Friedrich Rainer, and the hand-off of power to the new authorities. The Kärntner Zeitung announced the announcement on May 8. The acting British Town Officer Captain Watson not only objected but also directed that the Austrian flag be taken down when the Yugoslav troops insisted that the new mayor of Klagenfurt fly the Yugoslav flag instead of the Austrian one the following day.Ignored, a Yugoslav diplomat showed up in the Landesregierung building on the same day accompanied by a guerilla troop with a machine pistol, asking that Acting State Governor Piesch reverse the decree removing the Yugoslav flag.
General McCreery’s British Eighth Army troops arrived at Klagenfurt on May 8, 1945, at 9:30 a.m., and were greeted by newly elected democratic municipal and state authorities before the Stauderhaus. Transferred to General Noeldechen for the official surrender of the 438th German Division, Major General Horatius Murray rapidly seized all significant buildings and sites. Three hours later, simultaneously with Yugoslav military troops of the IVth army, groups of partisan fighters came aboard a train they had taken in the Rosental valley the day before.Tens of thousands of Volksdeutsche refugees and hundreds of troops of all nationalities who had been fighting under German command were congested in the city’s streets as both of these troops passed through them now escaping the Russians. Under Major Egon Remec, these partisan and Yugoslav regular forces captured the city and the adjacent South Carinthian territory, creating the Komanda staba za Koroka, subsequently renamed the “Commandantura of the Carinthian Military Zone.” Although this seems unlikely, British armored vehicles are believed to have fought friendly Yugoslav ones in a hostile way on Neuer Platz, renamed Adolf Hitler Platz in 1938, which would have been an odd scene for the liberated citizens.
Several days passed before the Yugoslav troops left the city itself, under British pressure and American diplomatic support, but not before Franc Petek established a rival Carinthian-Slovene civic authority (the Carinthian National Council). Still under protection by British soldiers, members of the Provisional State Government worked to create a thorough program covering the new political, sociological, and economic perspectives in the territory, so serving the British military authority. The victims of the Nazi government needed both property restitution and quick cash help. This presented a conundrum since the first actions the British took were freezing their bank accounts and stopping their financial transfers as well as grabbing all of the Nazi Party’s assets. Basic communication, public transportation, mail service, and supplies had to be rebuilt to some degree months later. A sizable section of the British Eighth Army, reconstituted in July 1945 as British Troops in Austria (BTA), had headquarters in Klagenfurt – as Carinthia, along with neighboring Styria, formed part of the British occupation zone in liberated Austria, which remained the case until October 26, 1955.
Modern history
First city in Austria to create a pedestrian zone in 1961 was Klagenfurt. Beginning in 1930 with the first city collaboration between Klagenfurt and Wiesbaden, Germany, the idea of amicable twinning of cities across countries started. Following this were several city alliances, which helped Klagenfurt to be crowned “European City of the Year” in 1967. Three times, a European city record, Klagenfurt has also received the prestigious Europa Nostra Diploma of Merit—an accolade for outstanding repair and reconstruction of its ancient center.
In 1973 Klagenfurt acquired four more surrounding municipalities: Wölfnitz; Hörtendorf; St. Peter am Bichl; and Viktring with its sizable Cistercian abbey. Including these towns brought Klagenfurt’s population up to about 90,000.
